The Republican Sotomayor
- ADOLFO A. FRANCO - Miami Herald
- Jun 12, 2009
Not a dry eye in the East Room. That is how the announcement of Sonia Sotomayor as President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court has been characterized.
A poignant and compelling story of a Hispanic who persevered through hard work and personal challenges against all odds to attend Ivy League schools and to embark upon a promising legal career.
Sound familiar?
That's the story of Miguel Estrada, whom President Bush nominated in 2001 to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Estrada, like Sotomayor, faced formidable obstacles on his road to success.
Born in Honduras, Estrada emigrated to the United States at the age of 17, speaking only rudimentary English -- but within five years he would graduate Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia College in New York before earning a law degree, again with honors from Harvard University. He would go on to work for both Democratic and Republican administrations at the Justice Department and would win two-thirds of the cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.
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